Emoji mojo

Shakespeare said there are seven stages of man.

I’m here to say there are seven stages of woman, too.

The first stage is I Want My Mommy.

The second one is I Want A Cookie.

I know stage two for a fact, because Mother Mary says that I didn’t talk until I was 2 years old, when I uttered a complete sentence: I want a cookie.

So that’s proof.

I was trying to say: I want carbohydrates.

They just couldn’t believe what a genius I was.

To return to point, the third stage is I Want A Dog.

This

returns later.

Just you wait.

The fourth stage is I Want A Man.

The fifth

is I Want A Divorce.

The sixth stage is I Can’t Find Anything.

I don’t know the seventh stage yet.

I’ll let you know when I get there.

If I’m still alive.

Stages one through five are self-explanatory, but stage six is a mystery.

I Can’t Find Anything.

I forget where I put everything.

Or I never knew in the first place. Maybe I’m not paying attention. My mind is on bigger things.

Like improving Shakespeare.

All I can tell you is that this morning, I lost my cell phone and found it after I searched the entire house.

It was in the bathroom sink.

Don’t ask.

Worse, immediately after that, I took the dogs for a walk around the block and when I got home, I realized that somewhere along the way, I had lost a brand-new set of earphones.

Which I had just ordered because I had lost the last three sets of earphones.

So I was on strike three, earphones-wise.

I decided I was going to find those earphones if it killed me.

First off, they were not cheap. Secondly, they were super-cute, and I’ll explain why.

I ordered them online from Apple, which had an option for free engraving, so you could put whatever you wanted on the earphone case.

And I’m a sucker for free engraving, personalization, or monograms.

I have personalized more dog beds than I can remember and written sayings on mugs and T-shirts. For my 60th birthday, I got all my girlfriends a pink tank top that read OFFICIALLY MARGINALIZED.

No one wore it, not even me.

But it’s funny, right?

Anyway, I don’t know why I love anything signed, personalized, or monogrammed.

Maybe because I’m a writer and I like writing on things.

It’s high-rent graffiti.

And it’s easier than writing a book.

Also it’s free. And fun!

Fun for free has my name on it.

Personalized.

Literally.

Anyway I didn’t put my name on the earphone case, but instead went with an emoji.

Most of the time I’m the emoji with red hearts for eyes, or the hearts around the face, or blowing a kiss with a heart.

I’m big on hearts.

But this time, I chose the emoji with the round eyes and the tongue hanging out.

For fun!

The emoji looks goofy, which is how I visualize myself.

This could be the problem.

If you visualize yourself as goofy, you’ll goof up.

And I had three goofy-face emojis engraved on the earphone case, because it was the number of times I lost my earphones.

So I played myself.

Anyway I started looking for my lost goofy-emoji earphones. I looked through the jacket and the fanny pack I had been wearing, which contained a mask and Mace.

I’m not only goofy, but paranoid.

What a great combination.

No wonder I’m divorced twice.

I walked all the way around the block again, but no earphones.

So I went home.

Where Francesca told me that you could use your phone to find your earphones, with the Find My Phone app.

Wow!

Anyway I tried the app and it told me that my earphones were somewhere in the house.

Huh?

So I searched the house all over again, including the bathroom sink, but no earphones. Just when I was about to launch into some truly creative profanity, I noticed something on the floor of the entrance hall:

A gleaming white case with three goofy-face emojis smiling back at me.

Yay!

I need a Find Bradley Cooper app.

Before stage seven.

Look for Lisa’s best-selling historical novel, “Eternal,” in stores now. Also look for Francesca’s critically acclaimed debut novel, “Ghosts of Harvard,” on sale now.